Rick’s journey: Lessons of Manhood From "The Walking Dead" Conclusion

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too..."

Rudyard Kipling

Carl thinks he'd be fine if Rick is dead.  He initiates his own rites of passage into manhood, barely making it out alive.  But he does.  He "wins." But when he has a dream (?) about his dad becoming a zombie, he can't kill his dad.  He's scared.  He's alone. 

Rick wakes up after almost being beaten to death by The Governor.  He realizes what has seemed obvious to everyone:  The world is not going to go back to the way it was.  He tried to hold on to that hope for his son and daughter. But he accepts reality, and apologizes to his son.

"You're a man Carl."

And with that, before they receive the hope of the return of a lost friend, we simply have two men.  Where will this journey lead them?  What will this journey make them?  We don't know yet, but what we do know is that so far they, and Michonne, have made a choice:

They are not zombies. 

They will not be zombies. 

We still have two men and a woman.

We see a woman's tears when she sees the silhouette of these two men. 

We hear a man's laughter when he sees her.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Rudyard Kipling

Lessons on speaking effectively

"Your only real job in giving a talk is to have something valuable to say, and to say it authentically in your own unique way." Chris Anderson, head of TED.

I'm reading, "TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking." I'm going to share what I learn with you, which helps me to learn and apply what I'm reading.  I hope it helps you too.

We all know how it feels to listen, and what makes it easy or hard to do so:

• When people talk too long, 
• don't stay on topic,
• talk too loudly or softly, 
• say things we aren't interested in, 
• when they are confusing, 
• or too excited.  

We all know what makes listening hard, and what makes it easy.

For me, talking and listening are the key skills of all life, and everyone can learn them.  I love all forms of communication, including singing, rapping, spoken word poetry, and writing.  But we can't do these things all of the time, all day, everyday.  But we can, and do, speak and listen daily.  And I want my speaking and listening to be as beautiful as music or spoken word poetry.

To achieve this, I went to the library to check out "How to Speak and How to Listen," but it wasn't at the library. So I checked out the TED talk book instead.  I'm enjoying the introduction.  Especially these quotes:

"The house lights dim.  A woman, her palms sweating, her legs trembling just a little, steps out onto the stage.  A spotlight hits her face, and 1,200 pairs of eyes lock onto hers.  The audience senses her nervousness.  There is a palpable tension in the room.  She clears her throat and starts to speak.

What happens next is astounding.

The 1,200 brains inside the heads  of 1,200 independent individuals start to behave very strangely. They begin to sync up.  A magic spell woven by the woman washes over each person.  They gasp together.  Laugh together.  Weep together.  And as they do so, something else happens.  Rich, neurologically encoded patterns  of information inside the woman's brain are somehow copied and transferred to the 1,200 brains in the audience.  These patterns will remain in those brains for the rest of their lives, potentially impacting their behavior years into the future.

The woman on the stage is weaving wonder, not witchcraft.  But her skills are as potent as any sorcery.

Ants shape each other's behavior by exchanging chemicals. We do it by standing in front of each other, peering into each other's eyes, waving our hands and emitting strange sounds from our mouths.  Human-to-human communication is a true wonder of the world. We do it unconsciously every day.  And it reaches its most intense form on the public stage."

 (Concerning rhetoric) "The word's core meaning is simply 'the art of speaking effectively.' Fundamentally, that's the purpose of this book.  To recast rhetoric for the modern era."

I'm done with the introduction.  As I learn, I'll share with you.  Thank you for your time and attention.

How to change your life RIGHT NOW! (Part 1)

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.~The Apostle Paul

Image from senegambiademocracy.org

I have good news for you.

Not new news.

But good news.

You can change your life right now by changing your focus, right now.

That's it.

That's the good news.

I'm sure you've heard something like it before.

And I'm sure you've experienced it before.  In a word:

Distraction.

You've distracted yourself before.  You've done something to get your mind off of something.

That skill, the skill you already have and already use is the life changing skill.

Imagine this.

You wake up.
You decided before you went to sleep what the first thought of your day would be.
So again, you wake up, and think that thought.  Say it's this thought:

"I determine my thoughts, emotions, and actions."

That's your first thought.  And you keep that thought in focus while you do your morning routine. You practice determining your focus, no matter what happens around you.  And you keep doing that. Imagine the impact this will make on your day.  Now imagine doing that every day.  According to the research of Prochaska, Norcross, and Diclemente, it takes 90 days to make a change permanent.  So imagine you wake up everyday, for 90 days, and focus your mind in the way we've been talking about.  You would have the power, one day at a time, one thought at a time, to not only change your life, but to define your life.

You can start now.

Decide your focus.

Click here for part 2.

How to change your life RIGHT NOW! (Part 2)

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." ~King Solomon

I have more good news.

A word.  A compound word (maybe?)

MINDSET:

A fixed mental disposition that predetermines your interpretation and response to situations.

From dictionary.com (rearranged by me.)

That's the good news.  You can fix your focus in such a way that it predetermines your interpretation and responses to situations.

Say you decide to fix your mental disposition on negative situations.  You decide to be negative.  Now say someone compliments you.  Someone says, "You really look nice today."  Because you have a negative mindset, you may interpret the compliment as a deception.  "She's only saying that to get something from me.  She just wants to butter me up for something."  So you may say, "Thank you," but you won't mean it.  You'll be watching her.

But if you have a positive mindset, and receive the very same compliment, you will interpret the compliment as genuine, and genuinely say thank you.

Your mindset determines your experience, and your responses to your experience.

Your focus is your heart.  And you have the key to what comes in, as well as what goes out, of your mind and mouth.  That's why Solomon said to guard your heart above all else, because everything you do flows from it.  

How do you change your life right now?

By changing your mindset.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Do you really want to meet God?

For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world:  to bear witness to the truth.  All who are of the truth hear my voice. ~Jesus, The Chosen One, God's Son.

Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more.
~Morpheus, from The Matrix.

What if I could tell you something that would change who you are from now until you die?

I have something to tell you.  Something that will change who you are from now until you die.

Do you want to hear it?

That's the question.

We say we want to change.

But most of the time we don't.

We won't.

We can't.

We are afraid of that change because it will mean we have come face to face with reality.

With God Himself.

Most of us don't want to meet God.

We don't.
We won't.
We can't.

Why?

Because if we meet God, then the illusion that we are gods must come to an end.
Do you want that?
Do you want to meet God?

(I'm really asking.  You can really answer in the comments.)

When death comes to good people

The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.  Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death. Isaiah 57:1-2 NIV

I had never seen God's words above from Isaiah.  So meaningful to me.  So powerful to me.  Intuitively I think we all know that when a good person dies, it must be for a good reason. And God just gave us the good reason. The real reason.

The reason an innocent baby dies, the reason an innocent baby is allowed to die, or is taken away from this world, is to spare this innocent baby from evil.  Evidently, evil awaited this innocent child, and God spared him or her, taking him or her straight to heaven.  Imagine.  To wake up in heaven, and for that to be the only thing you've ever known, or ever will know.  So many babies have died, and are dying as I type.  God is sparing them from evil.

This doesn't mean that killing them isn't evil. It still is.  But if God allows it, He is sparing them from even more evil, from even worse evil.  God is good.  Glory to God.

And when a righteous man dies, in his righteousness, because of his righteousness, God is sparing this righteous man from evil.

When a righteous woman is taken away, when she has to leave a job, or a neighborhood, God is good.  God is sparing this righteous woman from evil.

When you have been righteous, and you've lost your job, or home, or relationship, when God took you away from those people or those situations, God was sparing you from evil, if you were righteous in that situation.

Now if you were unrighteous, that's another story. Another blog post.

But if you were righteous, and you were removed from a person, place, or situation, God loves you.  God spared you.

Praise God.

How to heal and be healed (Part 2)

So, how do you know if you are healed, or if someone else is healed when you share the good news about Jesus the healer?

How did you know you were saved when you believed the good news about Jesus the Savior?

The Spirit makes it known, as it is written, "The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God."  In other words, God Himself makes it known to you.  How else would it be?  If God is the one who is forgiving you, God Himself is the one who'd let you know that He forgave you.

And if God is the one who heals you, then you will know that you are healed in the same way you know that you are forgiven.

How do you know if you're forgiven?  You don't feel ashamed or condemned anymore.  You feel free to be in a relationship with the one you formerly sinned against. 

What about sickness?  How do you know you're healed from a cough?  You stop coughing.  How do you know you are healed from a headache?  Your head no longer aches. 

You should expect the same certainty, predictability, and reliability of healing that you do from salvation.  Is one harder for God than the other? 

Remember some men bring Jesus someone who was paralyzed?  They put him in through a roof because Jesus was so crowded by people trying to hear him.  Jesus saw their faith and said to the paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven."  The religious leaders thought Jesus blasphemed because only God can forgive sins.  So Jesus said, "Which is easier to say?  'Your sins are forgiven,' or 'Take up your mat and walk?' But so that you will know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins--(Jesus said to the paralytic) "Take up your mat and walk."  And the paralyzed man got up and walked.

Do you see the connection?  You can't see sins being forgiven, but you can see a paralyzed man get up and walk.  The same God who heals diseases, which came about through Adam's sin, also forgives the sin that caused sicknesses. 

But we don't usually believe that.  In Jesus' day, the religious leaders believed he could heal, but they didn't believe Jesus could forgive sins.  Today it's the opposite.  We believe Jesus can forgive sins, but we don't believe he can heal.  We may not even believe He forgives sin, not really. 

I choose to believe.  Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He is still my Savior, my Healer, and Deliverer.

What about you?